Read Once a Warrior for Free Online

grin seemed to promise, he was finally going to catch her.
    Restlessly, Mike checked his watch and wondered what could be keeping the blonde. She’d been gone a good ten minutes and should have finished her business by now. He lifted his beer to his lips and let his gaze wander toward the back of the room, past the newly-acquainted couples who were sitting around the cluttered tables and the small knot of soldiers still standing at the bar . . . and stopped cold.
    Instead of coming out the bathroom door, Blondie was coming in the back door. Right behind her was a sailor wearing a sheepishly satisfied grin and crookedly buttoned bell-bottoms. They were careful not to speak to each other as they parted ways, but given the fact that she was now wearing his hat with the bill turned backwards, Mike had no doubts about what they’d been doing in the alley behind the bar.
    As if to confirm his conclusion, she wiped a smear of lipstick from the corner of her mouth with her pinkie finger while making her way back to the table.
    Cursing himself for a fool, he set the bottle down with a bang. This was his own damned fault. He’d thought about calling up one of his old girlfriends and asking her out, but he’d been gone so long that he didn’t know anymore who was married and who wasn’t. So he’d gotten exactly what he deserved—some khaki-whacky who wasn’t shy about spreading it around.
    He waited until she came to a stop in front of him before he stood and yanked his hat off her head.
    Blondie blinked twice, obviously taken aback. “Hey, what’s the matter with you?”
    “I stand in line for inspection and I stand in line for chow. I even stand in line to shower and sometimes to shit.”  Mike pulled on his hat without bothering to smooth back his dark brown hair, then lowered his scowling face dangerously close to her surprised one. “But the one thing I don’t stand in line for is a woman.”
     
    * * * *
     
    “You’re home early.”
    Mike snapped his head around at the sound of his mother’s hushed voice and just barely made out her shadowy figure seated in her favorite living room chair. He hadn’t
    come straight home from Bully’s. Instead, he’d driven by some of the landmarks on the compass of his childhood—Jeeter’s Market, where he used to deliver groceries on his second-hand bike; Paseo High School, where John and he had played varsity football and Charlie had lugged water for the team; and the Bijou Theater, where he’d stolen his first kiss in the last row of the balcony.
    Taking a right onto Garfield Street, he’d realized with a sharp pang that those days were long gone. And that the happily-ever-after he’d always dreamed of might never happen. He’d parked the old Buick in the gravel drive that he’d helped his father build the summer before he died and entered a darkened house that had led him to believe everyone was asleep.
    Now, he slid the front door’s chain lock into place and hung his hat on the hall tree. “I’ve been in the Army for three years, Mom,” he reminded her quietly. “You don’t need to wait up for me anymore.”
    Millie Scanlon switched on the floor lamp behind her mission oak rocker, then stood and crossed to the Christmas tree she’d stubbornly left up until he got home. There were no lights on it because of the blackout. Still, she rearranged a couple of shiny ornaments that weren’t hanging straight enough on its drying branches to suit her.
    Finally satisfied, she resumed her seat and fixed her oldest son with a reproving look. “You know how mothers are. We wait on and for our children from the day they’re born.”
    “Well, you can rest easy, ma’am.”  Mike gave her a mock salute. “I’m home for the night.”
    Millie pursed her lips, obviously remembering the time she’d gotten up to use the bathroom and caught him sneaking out to keep a late date with Mary Frances Walker in the hollow behind their house. He’d been in the tenth grade then